


ashes to dust, dust to blood

by onceagainoncemore



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fire, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Made up mythology, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, Phoenixes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22410040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceagainoncemore/pseuds/onceagainoncemore
Summary: Eddie doesn't burn, until he does.OR:phoenix!eddie
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 80





	ashes to dust, dust to blood

The day Eddie Kaspbrak is born, nine residents of Derry are sent to the local hospital for heat stroke. This particular illness was common, as children in summer were often left outside to play for hours with no sun protection, but Eddie Kaspbrak is born on a November evening. The day before had been a lovely winter wonderland, and the very nice and dependable man who ran Derry’s weather had told everyone that November 11 should be a well below freezing snow-day.

If someone had been tracking Eddie Kaspbrak’s birth as well as the weather, they would have noticed the heat grow as Sonia Kaspbrak’s labour grew closer and closer. They would have noticed the cooling wind blowing through the town at the exact second Eddie Kaspbrak took his first breath, and they would have noticed the town did not cool down until Eddie Kaspbrak was taken home by his parents.

But the snow does come back, once little Eddie is tucked into his cot for the first time, and no one was paying attention to both Eddie and the weather. It’s a freak event, nothing more, the weatherman says, and because he is very nice and dependable and handsome, he is believed.

  
  
  


Daddy likes building big fires. Eddie isn’t allowed near the wood, because mommy says spiders hide in there and Eddie doesn’t like spiders  _ at all,  _ but he watches daddy build the fire from the back door. It’s hot today, as it always is when daddy build the fires, so Eddie’s wearing his favourite dinosaur shorts. Even if he was allowed to help, he wouldn’t, because getting dirt on these shorts meant he couldn’t wear them anymore.

Once the fire has started, daddy steps into it. Eddie watches as he shrinks into nothing. Eddie’s mommy has sat next to Eddie, and she’s twisting her hands together.

After a minute, Eddie can see his daddy again, but it takes a few more minutes for the fire to die.

“Eddie!” He says, and picks Eddie up. He hadn’t picked Eddie up for  _ weeks.  _ Eddie laughs, and throws his arms out when his daddy spins him around.

  
  
  


“Now, Eddie,” Eddie’s dad says, as he smooths a band-aid onto Eddie’s knee. His knee didn’t even hurt anymore - both mommy and daddy had kissed it better! - but band-aids meant a piece of candy afterwards, so Eddie didn’t complain. “When someone like you falls, you always get back up.”

“Back up,” Eddie repeats, and swings his legs. He’s not tall enough to touch the ground when he’s sitting on the big fancy chairs in the dining room, unlike his parents. Daddy says it’ll be years before his legs are long enough to reach the ground, but Eddie’s already taller than the mark daddy made on the door frame  _ last week!  _ He’d be tall enough by next year!

“That’s right, buddy,” Daddy says, and kisses his forehead. “You won’t ever have much of a choice. You’ll always come back, little fire-bird.”

Eddie nods, and then holds his hands out for the candy. His daddy laughs, and hands him  _ two! _

  
  
  


Mrs Tozier was very nice, and even let Eddie cook! His new friend, Richie, wasn’t allowed in the kitchen - he couldn’t even stand up from his seat in the living room without his mommy telling him off! It was very funny, even if Richie said it wasn’t. 

“Did your mommy teach you how to check if the hot-plate is on, sweetheart?” Mrs Tozier asks, and Eddie nods. Eddie clambers onto the chair she’s dragged into the kitchen so Eddie can reach the mixing bowl, and places his hand onto the top. Mrs Tozier squeaks, and grabs him by the waist, and twists the tap so cold water runs out. She holds his arm so he has to keep it under the cold water, and he whines. “Eddie!”

Richie skids into the kitchen, his torn-up sneakers catching on the edge of the door, and Eddie giggles.

“You shouldn’t do that, Eddie,” Mrs Tozier says, very seriously, and Eddie nods, as seriously as he can. “Richie, sweetie, can you get the burn cream?”

Richie salutes his mommy, and skips off in the direction of the bathroom.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” She says, and he tries to tug his arm out of the water. The water is almost freezing now, and he can feel the cold slide up to his shoulder, like some yucky worm. Mrs Tozier doesn’t let go. “You’ll burn your hands straight off, Eddie.”

“It wasn’t hot,” Eddie says, and when Richie arrives back with a jar, Mrs Tozier finally lets him dry his hand off. Richie smooths the cream on, biting his lip in concentration, and Eddie can’t stop giggling. Mrs Tozier checks the hot-plate herself, and frowns.

“Eddie, I think you should play some games with Richie while we let the cream set,” She says, and Eddie smiles, and lets Richie drag him by his unburnt hand to the living room.

When Mrs Tozier enters the living room with a stack of pancakes, Eddie isn’t allowed to touch them without her checking his hand first. 

“It doesn’t hurt, I swear,” He says. She rubs her big thumb over his palm.

“I believe you,” She says. “But you need more cream before pancakes.”

Richie does the cream again, and gives Eddie the extra pancake.

  
  
  


Eddie’s daddy doesn’t come home one day. He will, Eddie’s mommy says. He always comes back. He doesn’t have a choice.

He never comes back.

  
  
  


“You have a fever,” Mommy says one morning, her hand against his forehead. Eddie doesn’t know what a fever is, but he knows it means being sick, and Eddie doesn’t feel sick at all. He shakes his head, and leans down to tie his shoes. “Eddie, you can’t go outside. You’re- you must be sick! You’re burning up… we need to go to the hospital.”

“Do we?” Eddie whines, and mommy does his shoes for him, but he doesn’t smile and thank her like he usually would, because  _ hospital  _ meant  _ no friends.  _

Mommy doesn’t respond, just picks him up and carries him to the car, and straps him into the backseat. Eddie thinks he’s too old for the baby-seat his mother makes him use - Richie has been using normal seats since he was five! And Eddie was seven! 

Eddie has to stay in the hospital for a whole week. None of his friends visit, but Eddie wasn’t able to tell them he was here, so he’s not too grumpy. 

“He’s a perfectly healthy boy, Mrs Kaspbrak,” The nurse tells his mother on the eighth day. “He is just on the brink of the usual body temperature for his age, but he is healthy. He simply runs hot. You may need to watch out, but as of right now, there is nothing to worry about.”

Eddie has to stay in bed for another three days before he’s allowed back outside.

  
  
  


“Nice cut,” Richie says when Eddie gets to school. Eddie looks down at his ankles, and sure enough, there’s a scratch along his left ankle. It’s bleeding a little, and now that Eddie has stopped pedalling, he can feel the hot throb of the wound. Eddie shrugs, and pulls his socks up to cover it.

“It’ll be gone by tomorrow,” Eddie says. “You know. Stuff like that always goes away after sleeping.”

“Are you a scab picker?” Richie asks as they walk to class.

“Ew! That’s- that’s disgusting! You’re so gross,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs. “And this won’t scab over. It’s too small. It’ll be gone by tomorrow, like it always is.”

  
  
  


“I want to make a campfire,” Richie says when Bill and Stan ask if they want to come to Stan’s sleepover, where Stan’s parents agreed to let them camp outside, but only if they were in the backyard.

“I’m not allowed matches,” Stan says.

“We don’t need matches!” Richie says, and slings his arm over Eddie. Eddie grins, and rubs his hands together. “We have an Edward Spagedward Kaspbrak on our hands! He can get a fire going lickety-split! You blink and  _ boom!  _ He’s made a bushfire!”

“You can bring matches?” Bill asks, and Richie sighs.

“Show ‘em!” Richie says, and shoves Eddie to the ground. When Eddie lands, he kicks up at Richie’s knees, and he shrieks. Eddie pulls himself up to sit cross legged, and grabs two small stones from the path behind him. Richie collects a small pile of grass and leaves, and places it in front of Eddie. Eddie warms the rocks in his hand, and then rubs them together. When he moves the rocks on top of the pile, and rubs them together again, the leaves catch alight. Richie cheers.

“That’s so cool!” Bill says. Eddie wriggles his fingers under the little bonfire, and holds it up. It burns through the leaves and grass quickly, leaving only fire in his hands. His daddy used to do this when Eddie was sad, and gave him tiny pieces of the flame to hold. He squishes his palms together, and the flame glows a little hotter.

He looks up at his friends, and their mouths are wide open.

“Your hands!” Stan says. “You’re going to burn your hands!”

“It’s not hot,” Eddie says, and besides, the flame wouldn’t last much longer. Eddie’s mommy had slathered him in sunscreen this morning, and sunscreen always used to ruin daddy’s fire. As he predicted, the flames die out within a couple seconds, and all three of his friends reach for his hands.

“You’re boiling!” Richie says, and brings Eddie’s hand up to his cheek. Richie’s cheek is cold, and Eddie can almost feel the warmth he’s leaving on Richie when he moves his hand.

“We should go to the nurse,” Bill says, and Eddie shakes his head.

“I’m fine!” He says, and brings his other hand up to cup Richie’s cheek. “Besides, Trashmouth is pretty much an icepack already.”

They forget about the fire as Richie screeches that he isn’t ice-cold, and Bill and Stan and Eddie bring up all their past parties where Richie had stuck his hand onto their back or neck or legs and jumped from how cold their friend’s hands were.

  
  
  


“How many lives does a phoenix have?” Mr Roberts, their English teacher, asks one day. Nobody answers. They’re supposed to be doing a creative writing unit, and Eddie was excited for the poetry, but not to write it himself. Richie was going to write a stupid poem like he does every year, and it would be the funniest part of the school year, like always.

“Nine?” Someone calls from the back of the classroom. Mr Roberts shakes his head.

“One hundred?” Eddie says, and Mr Roberts shakes his head again.

“A phoenix has an unlimited amount of lives,” He says, and draws an eight on its side- infinity. “Now, there are lots of ways to kill a phoenix, but almost none to truly destroy it. The phoenix will always rebirth itself. Any ideas on how would you properly kill a phoenix?”

“Stab it,” Richie says, and mimics his stabbing technique. 

“They’d come back from that,” Mr Roberts says.

“Get it sick,” Eddie says, and Mr Roberts looks at him. 

“Right,” Mr Roberts says. “Some people used to believe that if you could get the phoenix sick somehow, if you could force it to cough, or sneeze, that it would never recover. It could never rebirth. Thank you, Mr Kaspbrak.”

“How did you know that?” Bill whispers.

“Guessed,” Eddie says.

  
  
  


“You’ll be back,” A voice from the house on Neibolt street echoes as Eddie runs from the leper. He can still hear it when he’s running around the corner near Richie’s house, and still when he’s in front of his own house. He can still hear- “You’ll be back. You’ll come back. You don’t have an option, do you? Birds always come back to their nest. You’ll be back!”

  
  
  


Eddie’s arm does not go back to normal after he sleeps.

He stares at his cast for almost an hour, still feeling that deep ache up his forearm. He’s never been hurt for this long before. Sleeping hadn’t lessened the pain at all.

  
  
  


One of Eddie’s friends is afraid of fire, Eddie realizes, when the clown vomits a stream of it towards them. It feels hotter than any fire Eddie has ever felt before, and when it rushes just over their heads, Eddie can feel the tips of his hair burning, his scalp going pink from the burn of the heat. They all scream, and huddle closer together, wielding their dumb makeshift weapons.

Eddie reaches his arm up at the last of the fire blast, and it surrounds his arm, blisteringly hot. It stays alight when he brings his arm back down, and even spreads to the piece of metal he’s holding. His broken arm no longer hurts, and he grins.

“Little bird!” The clown shrieks. “What a pretty little bird! You’d always stay! Stay here, birdy. You’ll float too! You’ll learn to fly down here! Stay, little bird!”

  
  
  


Eddie is moving away to New York tomorrow. His mom thought Derry was a bad influence, and that New York would have better health-care, and Eddie had heard her say to one of her friends,  _ Maybe they’ll find what’s wrong with Eddie.  _

“I’ll beat you to the clubhouse,” Richie says, and throws his bike down. Eddie grins, and throws his on top of Richie’s. They pose like the professional runners they’ve watched on TV, and Richie starts the countdown.  _ One, two, three-  _ And off they run! Eddie’s always been faster than Richie, but Richie has longer legs.

Eddie runs, and he imagines that he’s one of those cartoon characters that runs so fast there’s a trail of fire behind. He runs, and when he looks back, Richie is far behind him. He whoops, and tries to run faster, and imagines little wings on the back of his shoes.

  
  
  


Eddie is stabbed through the chest, and all he can think of is his father’s bonfires. 

“Richie,” He says, and collapses onto Richie’s chest. Richie swears, and presses something against the wound, but Eddie’s not sure what it is. He feels hotter than he’s ever been. He’s sweating, and Richie’s hands feel colder than dry ice. He can imagine Richie’s hands melting from the heat Eddie’s giving off, and he giggles weakly.

“You’re going to be okay,” Richie says. “Eddie?”

“Richie,” He says, and he’s not sure how long they’ve been looking at each other when someone pulls Richie away. But he comes back, and he’s wrapping an arm around Eddie’s waist, and Eddie can’t help but laugh when Bev presses a hand against his forehead.

“He’s burning up,” Bev whispers. “We need a hospital.”

When Eddie blinks, he’s outside again, in the sunlight, leaning against Richie while Bev goes through everyone’s pockets.

“You smoke,” He says to Richie.

“Yeah?” Richie says, and brushes the top of Eddie’s fringe away from his forehead.

“Your lighter,” Eddie says. “Give.”

“You are not smoking while you are bleeding to death, Eddie!” Richie says, but Eddie already knows where he’s hiding the lighter, and with shaky hands, pulls it out of Richie’s left pocket. It takes seven whole tries before it stays alight, and another few before Eddie’s hands are stable enough to hold the flame in one place. Richie doesn’t try and stop him, just watches as Eddie raises the flame to his hair.

Eddie catches alight.

It’s dark, after a minute or so. Eddie thinks he could stay in the dark, but he doesn’t like dark unless he’s sick. Eddie has always liked lighter colours, so when he can see the beginnings of a flame, little yellow embers burning, he focuses on them.

“What the fuck,” Bev says. Eddie can breathe again, and he no longer feels hot.

“He’s-” Ben starts, and then moves Eddie’s shirt up his chest. “The wound- it’s gone!”

Richie tears off the bandage on Eddie’s cheek, and brushes his thumb where there should be sensitive wound. Eddie can’t feel anything except the grime on Richie’s finger.

“They’re gone,” Richie says.

“Remember?” Eddie says. “Remember?”

“Elementary school,” Richie says, and laughs. Everyone else looks confused from what Eddie sees, but he’s tired, so he closes his eyes, resting on Richie. Richie can’t stop laughing, and Eddie joins in. “Fire charmer Eddie,”

Eddie nods, and Richie laughs harder.

“Little bird,” Richie echoes, and Eddie opens his eyes. The grime isn’t gone from Eddie’s body, and neither is his promise scar, but the gaping hole in his chest is, so he kisses Richie. Hopefully the flame solved Eddie’s sore tooth.

It hadn’t, but it’s a nice kiss anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a tumblr. check me out @ onceagainthennevermore


End file.
